Tag: Ray Rice

My strongest memories of the holiday season, like many people’s, are ones of traditions or their interruptions. My brother and I looked forward to Christmas Eve service, held in a gigantic Cathedral-like Congregationalist church built of brick and stone with a steeple more like a Gothic tower than a New England spire, as much for the fact that it signaled presents would soon be opened as it was the one time a year we could hold a lit candle and not get in trouble. Years later, when I attended that same service, this time as an adult with my own family, it was almost as if I were returned to childhood, to my son’s age, only with a forward-looking memory leap-frogging through time, past high school and college and my first teaching jobs and marriage and a family of my own in which I now became my own parent, nervously allowing my son to hold and light a candle against the darkness of that great, vaulted ceiling. Continue reading “Holiday Celebrations and Thanks”

There has been so much written about the midterm election cycle that we are just concluding (but that is still underway in several states, including our own), that I hesitate to say much more about it. But I do want to focus on some very important positive results from this election process, regardless of how you may feel about specific outcomes of individual races and issues. Continue reading “Model Leaders”

Under Question 4 in the Nov. 6 election, the University of Maine at Presque Isle would receive $4.5 million, all of which is specifically designated for expanding or developing programs that meet our state and nation’s workforce needs and provide you with competitive jobs and salaries for years to come. These infrastructure improvements will include major renovations in both Wieden and Folsom halls, adding classroom, lab and clinical spaces that will increase our enrollments in the Nursing program we’re partnering with UMFK to bring to UMPI, as well as our Medical Lab Technology, Physical Therapist Assistant and Exercise Science programs. In addition, this funding will complement plans already in motion for the construction of the research-grade Zillman Family Greenhouse, a cornerstone of our new Agricultural Science program. All of this will allow us to double the number of students we can enroll in these and future programs. Continue reading “How to Support Your Local College!”

On behalf of the University of Maine at Presque Isle, it is my great pleasure to welcome all of you, new and returning students, community members, faculty and staff (old and new!) to the start of the 2018-2019 academic year.

This is a particularly exciting time to be an Owl (hoot hoot!).Last year, we continued our streak of greater and greater recognition from national organizations for our academic excellence and affordability.We jumped up several spots in U.S. News & World Report’s top regional public schools ranking (to lucky #13 in all of the North!).We’ve been ranked in Forbes’ “best value” list, received multiple “Best Value School Awards” and just this summer were noted as the most affordable college in all of Maine and New England (public or private) by Student Loan Hero (https://studentloanhero.com/featured/ranking-most-affordable-colleges-in-northeast/ ).It’s particularly gratifying to be recognized for your value—which to my mind is always a combination of academic excellence and cost, particularly what students have to pay back in loans when their undergraduate careers are over.That’s why such recognition is so important, as it shows that we truly are being successful in putting our students’ futures first. Continue reading “Welcome to the Way it Should Be!”

I always look forward to the annual Spring Awards Ceremony here at UMPI, not only because it allows us to celebrate the accomplishments of some of the University of Maine at Presque’s Isle most distinguished and dedicated students, but because it allows us to highlight what is best about UMPI: our collective ability to provide a superior education for people who have the dedication and incentive to take advantage of it.Academic excellence —curricular as well as co-curricular—is the heart of a university; and, as a university, we are here first and foremost to help students learn as much as they can and as well as they can.Since 1903, this institution, under evolving names and structures, has dedicated itself not only to meeting the needs of the students and communities it serves, but to help its students succeed when that path to success may itself be a challenge. Continue reading “Celebrating Work Well Done”

It’s just about March Madness time, which reminds me of the years I spent as a grad student at UConn, waiting to see what seed the Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams would receive.Back in the ‘90s, the household names were Ray Allen (nearly 2,000 points) and Travis Knight under Coach Calhoun; and Rebecca Lobo (more than 100 colleges tried to recruit her!), Jennifer Rizzotti (point guard for their first national championship!) and Nykesha Sales (Defensive Player of the Year in 97-98) playing for the remarkable Coach Auriemma.It was never crazier (not always in a good way) at UConn than during the month of March…and probably never more exciting. Continue reading “Why I Love NCAA Division III at UMPI”

One of my favorite things about teaching has always been learning, which can mean investigating new modes of instruction, or getting advice from friends and colleagues or the good old-fashioned reading of new books. Since becoming first a provost and then president, I’ve been reading a good number of those books, mostly about higher education and management and business models. So not always the greatest of page-turners!Continue reading “Creative Destruction and Higher Ed”

I’ve been thinking a great deal over the past several weeks about what I am thankful about for having worked at UMPI for over 20 years now in several different roles—professor, provost, now president.And as I was thinking about what to write for this end-of-the-semester issue, I looked through columns I had written for the University Times many years ago (I wrote a column for several years that I called “Notes from a Mad English Professor,” thinking that I was quite witty at the time—oh well…).And one I found is worth reprinting in part because it was about what it was like to teach at UMPI—and why teaching here was at times different from other institutions and why that was a very good thing.Reading it over again this afternoon, some 15 years later (!), reminds me of how important, how challenging and how rewarding teaching is at UMPI.And how much I admire the faculty here at UMPI who, day in and day out, do even more than I recorded all those years ago… Continue reading “Rice’s Ruminations Why Teaching Isn’t a 9-5 Job at UMPI and Why That’s a Very Good Thing!”

As I write this, our country deals with another tragic incident, this time the mass killings of worshippers in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.This follows the Las Vegas shooting on Oct. 1, a shooting in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, not two years ago, the Orlando night club shooting in 2016, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, as well as countless others across the country that have received less media and political attention.Some of these occurred in religious institutions, some in schools, some in public arenas.Our public outlets are filled with near-constant discussion focusing in various ways—and with widely varying quality and integrity—upon the hows and whys of these events, often including who is directly or indirectly culpable and what could have been done to prevent them. Continue reading “Rice’s Ruminations Teaching Virtue”

Sixteen years ago this past Sept. 11, I recall leaving my 9:25 a.m. College Composition classroom in Pullen Hall on a clear blue morning and, as I made my way up to the Campus Center, hearing the first reports of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.The weeks following were filled with fear, sorrow, anger and not a small amount of self-reflection.Not long after the events, in fact, I began writing a paper (which I later presented at a conference and published in “The Maine Scholar”) that opened with a quote from Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulations,” followed by this: Continue reading “Reflections on 9-11”